


Open Doors and Broken Hearts

by Glitchwitch_cos



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: AU where Michael opens the door, And vaguely boyfriends but like, Christine is sweet and Michael loves her, F/M, I keep rereading this out of some emotion and its weird, I only finished this because my girlfriend wanted me to, I'm still kinda mad abt Jeremy being a dick and Michael just forgiving him, Im proud of it though, It's Rich, M/M, Michael gets mad because I get mad, Other, Poor Michael tbh, Rich Goranski and Michael Mell are best friends, They live together because I want them to, and it shows, because I said so, but he's mad so he says mean things, expensive headphones, lmao I don't have a girlfriend anymore guys but I'm glad I finished this anyways, mental breakdowns, tbh I don't think that Michael should've forgiven Jeremy right away, very vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 17:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20393452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitchwitch_cos/pseuds/Glitchwitch_cos
Summary: Michael opens the bathroom door, but it isn't Jeremy.A story of how bullshit happens and a single sentence can destroy someone."Shit hits the fan because Michael needed a book. It was a fantasy novel, about superpowered kids, one he thought Rich would like, but it was at Jeremy’s house. So, he decided to suck it up and go get it while Rich visited Jake in the hospital.That was his mistake."





	Open Doors and Broken Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Fit In](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16907451) by [romantichopelessly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romantichopelessly/pseuds/romantichopelessly). 

Things change once your best friend of twelve years calls you a loser and leaves you to have a panic attack in a popular kid’s bathtub on Halloween. Michael’s barely done stopping the chest-rattling sobs when a knock sounds on the door. It’s not like the knocks from earlier, it’s more gentle, cautious. Michael, who fell into a terrifying apathy about five minutes ago, opens the door.

He doesn’t know who he expects on the other side. Deep down, he hoped it was Jeremy. He knew it wouldn’t be, but he hoped. Instead, standing on the other side of the door was Rich fucking Goranski, who doesn’t look like the Rich most people remember right now. Instead, he looks like ninth-grade Rich, eyes softer, mouth missing that mean sneer he’s had for the past two years straight, posture a little less rigid.

Most people don’t remember freshman Rich. Even Jeremy doesn’t remember freshman Rich. Michael remembers. He remembers because freshman Rich was the only person aside from Jeremy who was nice to him, who let him talk about Bob Marley or video games, or whatever inane documentary he’s watched the night before. Freshman Rich was kind and gentle, and he genuinely cared about Michael. Hell, he’d even met Michael’s moms, not that he’d ever tell Jeremy that, since Jeremy doesn’t remember Freshman Rich.

Sophomore and Junior Rich was mean and different, dyed hair and gross tanktops that freshman Rich would’ve hated, gross jokes and mean words. And he didn’t seem to remember freshman Rich either. He started slamming Michael against lockers, giving him the black eyes he used to help ice, swearing at him, telling him awful things.

Yeah, Michael remembered freshman Rich, and this-this was freshman Rich, standing in front of him. Things clicked into place.

“You were squipped.” Michael’s voice is rough and strained, but the words come out anyways, startling the other boy.

“Y-Yeah. How did you-Oh. Jeremy. He’s the reason you’re in here, isn’t he?” RIch isn’t asking, and Michael’s glad he doesn’t have to confirm it, so instead he steps to the side to let Rich into the bathroom.

Michael sits on the edge go the bathtub, Rich perches on the sink counter. “Why isn’t it making you all mean right now?” Michael asks. He’s genuinely curious, but at this point, it’s not to try and help Jeremy anymore.

“Alcohol. Makes it glitch out. I managed to convince it that a drinking contest was a good idea. It’s here but it’s unaware, it’s not really registering what’s happening.” Rich scrunches his nose, a quirk that Michael realized that Rich had dropped post-squip. He also notices Rich’s lisp, which definitely wasn’t there on a regular basis. 

“It’s trying to tell me to leave. I-“ Rich flinches and takes a deep breath, “I don’t want to leave you here, alone.”

Michael is surprised at that. “O-okay. Wait, wait wait wait, you were asking for- for Mountain Dew Red earlier. You seemed scared. Why did you need it?”

Rich’s eyes widen, but he says quietly, “It turns it off. For good.”

Michael shoots to his feet. “Of course! Green activates, Red deactivates! I’m such an idiot.” 

Rich rolls his eyes, “No, you’re not, but the problem here is that Mountain Dew Red was discontinued a long time ago. We can’t get it.”

Michael rolls his eyes. “Maybe you can’t get it, but I’ve spent my life making deals with the guy at Spencer’s, he gets me anything I want. And he told me yesterday he got a shipment of - guess what? - Mountain Dew Red. I was gonna get it today and then-“ He stops for a moment but crashes through anyways. “Then all this bullshit with Jeremy happened and frankly I need an excuse to leave anyway.”

Rich jumps off the counter, looking at Michael like he just saved the world, and then he hugs him, which hasn’t happened since freshman year, and he was most certainly taken off guard but Rich’s hugs were always the best because he was small but god damn was he strong. 

“Thank you, Michael. C’mon, let me grab a couple shots for the road, I hope you don’t mind driving.” Rich releases him and winks. Michael laughs. 

“Nah dude, driving’s great. Plus I really don’t want my poor car unsupervised anywhere near a Jake Dilinger party ever again.” 

And then they’re both laughing, Rich is pulling him into the party, they grab him whatever alcohol they reach first, then they book it out to Michael’s PT cruiser and they leave. Rich picks the music and suddenly they’re both singing loudly - and in Rich’s case, drunkenly - to Nirvana’s Teen Spirit, shouting each lyric at the top of their lungs and Michael can’t remember the last time he felt this happy. 

They reach the mall, which at this hour is definitely closed, but the Spencer’s guy agreed to meet him out front and the transaction goes quickly, and in five minutes, Michael is climbing into his car with a case of discontinued soda, handing one to Rich, and watching the deactivation process, which involves a lot of screaming, but hey, Michael isn’t here to freak out.

Rich is passed out the whole way to Michael’s house, in which he bypasses his moms’ questions as to why he’s dragging a half-conscious Rich Goranski instead of a mostly-conscious Jeremy by saying that Rich drank too much and he wanted to make sure he was safe and that he’d dropped Jeremy at home.

The stairs to the basement sucked, but he made sure that Rich didn’t hit anything too hard, and that he was in a mostly comfortable position with a thick blanket and some pillows on the couch, and Michael, not really knowing what to do while Rich wakes up, starts up the first movie that comes on.

When he wakes up, Michael checks his reactions and everything, making sure there isn’t any obvious brain damage or a concussion.

“Can you-Can you hear it? Is it still here?” 

Rich looks at him with wide eyes and shakes his head. “It’s gone, I can’t hear it. It-It can’t control me anymore. Holy shit. Holy SHIT, Michael, I’m free!”

He starts laughing in relief, and Michael joins in, and they’re just two boys sitting in his basement, laughing their asses off because they just got rid of a fucking supercomputer with Mountain Dew and if that isn’t the strangest thing you’ve ever heard, you’re lying. 

Jeremy Heere is the furthest thing from their minds that night. Instead, Michael and Rich play stupid games and eat a weird amount of snacks and for the first time in months, Michael thinks he has a friend.

Rich stays at Michael’s over the weekend, and Michael’s moms are happy to have him over, the first time they re-met Rich, he and Michael had been doing some weird competition with gummy bears and Michael was just laughing. They hadn’t even seen him smile since Jeremy left, and now, here he is, laughing his ass off with a kid they’d met once three years ago and frankly, they loved him.

Michael offered his house to Rich anytime. Rich looked incredulous but told Michael he’d love to stay over as often as possible, and Michael beamed as they got out of his car in the parking lot of Middleborough High School, laughing and joking on their way in. 

It became a routine, a way of life. Rich would go to his own house on Monday to do whatever, grab clothes, wash the ones he had, etc. He goes to school on Tuesday and Michael takes them both to his house, and sometimes they don’t do anything, sometimes they play games, and sometimes they talk about Jeremy and the Squips. 

Rich explains how the squip works, over time, and Michael takes that information and uses it. He makes plan after plan until they come up with something to save not only Jeremy, but the school.

The plan goes off with very few hitches, and Michael gets to talk to Jeremy for the first time since the squip, and he quickly decides he doesn’t want to talk to Jeremy until Jeremy wants to talk to him.

So, he and Rich continue with their arrangement, and eventually, Rich becomes a part of Michel’s family, not even bothering to go home, and one phone call to his parents revealed that there wasn’t much of a home to go back to. Michel’s moms are thrilled, and he’s pretty sure they’re twenty seconds from signing his adoption papers constantly.

Shit hits the fan because Michael needed a book. It was a fantasy novel, about superpowered kids, one he thought Rich would like, but it was at Jeremy’s house. So, he decided to suck it up and go get it while Rich visited Jake in the hospital.

That was his mistake. Jeremy and Christine were studying or making out or whatever when Mr. Heere lets Michael into the house. He walks up the stairs and goes to knock on the door when he hears Christine’s voice.

“Jeremy, you can’t avoid him forever. He’s your best friend.” Michael’s shocked brain vaguely thinks that Christine shouldn’t sound so serious, but then she continues and the thought is gone. “Look, Rich told me he wasn’t going to reach out to you because he’s giving you space in case you don’t want to be around him anymore. And by the way-Rich is a really cool guy without the squip, so he’s definitely not lying about this.”

Jeremy lets out a sound he’s only heard when Jeremy was really freaking out. “I can’t, Christine. I can’t reach out to him.”

Christine’s voice has an edge to it that makes Michael make a mental note not to fuck with her when she speaks again. “And why the fuck not?”

Michael should’ve walked away. But he wanted to know.

“He’s just Michael, Christine, he’s not like us. He doesn’t fit in.”

Michel doesn’t realize he’s crying until those last words rip a choked sob out of his throat. The door opens, revealing Christine.

“Michael? What-Are you crying? Are you okay?” She sounds so genuinely concerned that Michael almost believes she cares. Instead, he angrily wipes away tears with the sleeve of his hoodie - Rich’s hoodie, Michael’s had gotten dirty when Chloe Valentine ‘Accidentally’ spilled her soda on him yesterday.

“Yeah, I-I’m fine Chris-Christine. Ju-Just came for m-my bo-book.” His voice is thick with tears and held back sobs, and he pointedly ignores Jeremy when he goes in to grab it. In an impulse decision that makes him feel really shitty but also so much better, he unhooks the Minecraft heart keychain that said ‘Player One’ in 8-bit letters that Jeremy had gotten him for his birthday and shoves it into Christine’s hand.

“You-you’ll ne-ed it more th-than me.” Is his excuse, and before Jeremy can even move, he’s leaving, opening the door to his car with shaky hands and he sees Jeremy in his rearview mirror but he doesn’t stop, just peels out of the driveway and doesn’t look back.

Michael Mell is not really crying, not yet, instead he’s driving to his house and he’s not really registering that he’s slamming the doors, his keys scratching the inside of the dish his moms put out because he kept losing them, storming into his basement, locking the door, and only then does he let go.

Crying isn’t an apt description of what’s happening, though. What’s happening to Michael is soul-rending screaming and hot tears he can’t feel streaming down his face. Michael falls to the ground, barely registering the fact that his knees are going to be bruised like hell from the concrete floor and he’s tearing at his hair and tugging at his skin and god knows he doesn’t even feel like he exists anymore.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been but suddenly someone’s holding him and keeping his hands from scratching at his skin and he’s kind of sure it’s Rich and he’s really grateful that he has keys to the basement because he needed that hug.

Rich is trying to talk to him but someone’s screaming and it takes too long for Michael to realize that it’s him. Rich’s arms are wrapped around him and he’s saying things and once Michael stops screaming, when the pain has mostly left his soul, he realizes Rich is trying to help him.

He’s just crying now, chest-rattling sobs instead of screams and Rich looks relieved because he can handle crying, they’ve both woken up crying from nightmares and they both got good at helping each other.

A knock sounds on the basement door and Michael assumes it’s one of his moms but when Rich opens it he says, “Go away.” In a tone that makes it very obvious that Jeremy’s standing at the top of the stairs.

There are sounds of a scuffle and suddenly Jeremy’s in front of him and he’s talking, saying words that Michael doesn’t care about anymore. He registers Rich and Christine arguing in the background and realizes that he can hear them better than he hears Jeremy and they’re arguing about letting Jeremy in here.

He pushes at the stupid striped shirt he helped Jeremy pick out for his birthday, he screams words he doesn’t understand but knows are hurtful and he’s so angry and then he locks eyes with Rich and suddenly he’s not. Suddenly he’s not anything anymore. The anger disappears within moments, leaving him empty and numb. He stops moving completely, and that seems to scare Jeremy even more.

“Michael. Michael! Micah, please, say something.”

He pulls himself out of Jeremy’s limp hands. He curls in on himself, back against the couch. Rich is next to him in seconds, a hand tentatively on his shoulder.

“You should go home, Jeremy,” Rich says, the barest hints of a warning in his voice.

Jeremy just scoffs. “No offense dude, but Micah was literally screaming when his mom let me in. He’s not okay.”

Michael turns blank eyes on Jeremy, so empty of everything, his voice completely flat as he says, “Since when do you care? It’s not like I fit in, is it?”

His throat hurts, it might be the screaming. And his face feels raw and his arms and legs are definitely scratched to hell and back. He relishes in the sting of the hot, damaged skin against the cold cement. It’s the only thing keeping him tethered to this reality. He realizes Jeremy is staring at him. Rich and Christine are looking at him like he'd grown another head.

“I’m sorry, Michael.” His best friend’s voice is strained, shaky, thin.

“Yeah. Sure. Don’t bother. At least now you won’t have to worry about me following you around like some damn lost puppy.” Oh, the anger’s back. It’s not fun but it’s better than nothing.

“Michael-“

“No!” He cuts Jeremy off. He doesn’t feel bad, not yet, he will, but for now, he feels the anger and he lets it take over, lets it say the things he never would. Christine recoils when his eyes flicker over her and Rich, wonderful Rich just makes sure that Michael knows he’s there, and he lets him talk. “I heard. I don’t need you apologizing and I sure as hell don’t need your explanations, you’re a shit liar anyways. I don’t fit in?! Tell me something I didn’t know, Jer. I’ve never fit in! These past weeks with Rich are the closest I’ve felt to normal since you ditched me for a supercomputer and a girl who didn’t know you were alive five months ago! I never fit in with anyone but you, and I was okay with that, it was fine that you were the only person I had because I loved you. I loved you so much that I let myself accept the fact that you didn’t love me back, Jeremy, that you were in love with a girl you’d never spoken to and I let it go!”

Jeremy starts to speak, “But-“

Michael takes a shaky breath, standing up, unaware of the fact that his voice is rising and his moms can absolutely hear him. He begins stalking slowly towards the only person he’d ever really needed, anger burning fires in his eyes and leaking poison from his tongue. He vaguely notices Rich stand too, ready to hold him back.

“But nothing, Jeremy. It doesn’t matter. You want to leave me behind because I didn’t have some FUCKING supercomputer in my goddamn brain?! Fine! Go! Get the hell out of my house! Get out and don’t come back! I’m not letting you hurt me anymore. You know the way out.”

He points to the door and Jeremy looks like he’s going to protest and he is not moving to get up so Michael decides the anger can have one last moment.

“I. Said. Get. OUT!” His voice rises, each word punctuated with a step forward, and it startles Jeremy into moving, he scrambles up the stairs and out of the house, out of Michael’s life.

Good.

Christine lingers for a moment, looking like she wants to speak, but a gesture from Rich has her walking out too.

He finds himself bundled in a large, warm hoodie and a soft blanket next to Rich, who’s watching some Vine compilation. The minute he’s aware of his existence, tears start falling, so he kind of wishes he hadn’t become aware. Rich notices immediately and draws him into a hug, angling his phone so that Michael could watch too. He just holds him, lets him cry. He falls asleep feeling worse but somehow better than he has in months.

At school, Michael doesn’t even look at Jeremy, doesn’t sit with him, ignores the red around his friend’s eyes, ignores the looks Jeremy’s friends throw him, ranging from anger to sympathy and he fucking hates sympathy so he slams the seven-eleven coffee he’s never tried and hates it but he needs the caffeine and he can’t be bothered to eat right now so he got a coffee - despite Rich’s protests, who knew the kid was such a mother hen - and then he leaves.

He walks right out of the cafeteria and doesn’t spare Jeremy and his new clique a glance. He can feel the hurt radiating off of him in waves but can’t bring himself to care anymore. Not that he’s trying, though, since the petty voice in his head just keeps telling him that Jeremy deserves a little hurt after all he’s put Michael through.

He goes home. Michael signs himself right out of the front office and goes home under the pretense of being sick, but honestly, he’s just too out of his mind to care about school, so he goes home.

He stops at a park, first. It’s more of an abandoned slide in the middle of the woods than a park, but he likes the large climbable trees and he likes the silence. He likes to think that someone put it out there for a child who’s gone off to college, to be successful.

It’s mid-February, and snow coats the ground in a thick layer. He’s only wearing his hoodie, not the red one that Jeremy helped him put together when they were thirteen, it’s a dark green one that just says “Aliens” in silver holographic glitter. Rich had given it to him after a particularly nasty lady who seemed extremely disdainful of Michael on sight had ‘accidentally’ spilled half a can of paint on him, completely ruining his only other hoodie, a plain black one that had a particularly soft lining that he only wore when he was super overwhelmed or emotional. People who didn't like him tended to spill things on his hoodies. He's not happy about that realization.

His converse crunch through the snow, soaking with cold water, and squeak against the frosted plastic of the slide as he climbs to the top.

He wallows. Michael doesn’t normally let himself wallow. No point in holding onto something that isn’t going to change, right? But this - This deserves a little bit of wallowing. He doesn’t know how long he sat there before going home. His PT Cruiser is silent, devoid of his normal Bob Marley or Nirvana. He walks into a quiet house, his moms are working late and Rich doesn’t push him into talking, just watches over him, gently, guiding him to the basement when he catches Michael yawn.

School the next day starts terribly, he gets cornered by Chloe Valentine, who Michael had never actively spoken to and never really wanted to, and Christine, who he’d already offended once this week, he didn’t want to do it again. He’d been project partners with Christine a couple of times and he genuinely thought she was cool and nice, he hated hurting her feelings.

  
“Hey, Headphones Kid,” Chloe doesn’t even bother with his name, which totally doesn’t annoy Michael at all, “What the fuck did you do to Jeremy? He looks like a kicked puppy!”

Michael slams his locker door and faces the two girls. He lets the bitter anger swell in his chest, snapping, “What, like Christine hasn’t told you? And, newsflash, just because you don’t like me doesn’t mean everything’s my fault, Valentine,” He says her last name with such disdain that she takes a step back. “Maybe you should ask Jeremy. Or Christine, since she’s so kindly standing next to you.”

Chloe looks taken aback, but Christine finally speaks up, quiet, without any of her usual enthusiasm. “I wanted them to hear your side of the story. You’re the one who got hurt the most.”

If a laugh could be physical, Michael’s would’ve cut diamonds. “I get hurt all the time, Canigula, and my side of the story’s never mattered. This? This isn’t the worst thing to live with. At least this time he left me with someone who actually gives a shit.”

Both girls look shocked at his words, but Christine looks like he’s gutted her like a fish. They stand there gaping for a moment before Michael snaps again.

“Are you going to move? I have Chem in ten minutes and I’d like to get some last-minute studying in.” His tone is harsh, harsher than he meant but it feels nice to let out the anger stewing beneath his skin.

They both step aside, and as he walks past, Michael decides to have a final word. He faces Christine quickly, and says quietly, “Whether he sent you or not, make sure Jeremy knows this isn’t Jake’s party all over again. I’m not stuck in a bathroom alone because he decided I wasn’t enough anymore. I don’t need him anymore. I’m my own damn person with my own damn feelings and until he gets that, he can leave me the fuck alone.”

Then he walks down the hallway and doesn’t look back. 

Chem goes quickly, and Michael aces the test without much trouble, spending most of his free time staring blankly at his phone background, a candid of Jeremy making a dumb face while they made brownies at Michael’s house. Jeremy never saw the photo, and Michael never showed him. 

He changes it, thirty minutes later, just before the bell rings, to a photo of Rich passed out on the basement floor. 

Michael holds onto things, sometimes. He held onto Jeremy for twelve years. He realizes, now, that maybe it’s time to let him go.

He and Rich don’t talk on the drive home. They don’t have to.

Their story doesn’t have a big happy resolution, and really, stories rarely do. Jeremy doesn’t miraculously change as a person, and Michael doesn’t miraculously forgive him. They speak formally, for the next couple of months, have a feelings jam - With Rich there to buffer, in case of any spontaneous anger, - and slowly they become acquaintances, and then friends. They keep in touch, as does the rest of the group, after Michael apologizes to both Christine and Chloe, genuinely sorry for snapping at them.

They separate for college, as friends do, Michael and Rich both end up in LA, Michael double majoring in Music and Film production, Rich taking classes to be a therapist or guidance counselor for kids, just like they once had been, and they even date for a while, never really getting serious but never calling it off. It’s a good arrangement for them, even if most people don’t get it. Jeremy ends up in Chicago, studying Biotechnology, attempting to find out exactly what the Squip had been, trying to fix it. Christine majors in Theater, making it to Broadway, and they all go see each of her shows at least once. Jeremy always brings roses. 

They talk, they go to each other’s weddings, they get together at least once a year for a week or so, and they spend their lives happy.

Michael and Jeremy never return to what they once were, and that’s okay, for them. They don’t need to be what they once were. What they once were is for the people that they were, the people they never chose to be. Michael the stoner turned into Michael the Producer, with the wonderful boyfriend who helps kids accept themselves. He’s not alone, and he doesn’t try to hide anymore, because he doesn’t have to. Jeremy the Weirdo turned into Jeremy the famous medical engineer who found a way to turn something that destroyed his life into something that helps people fix theirs. 

Their lives stopped being a two-player game and started being actual lives. And maybe that’s for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> I spent exactly a month writing this lmao. I wrote the first half, without Rich, realized I couldn't finish it like that and that I hated it, deleted it all, rewrote half of it, had a mental breakdown, said fuck it, and didn't give it a happy ending because life rarely ends that way.
> 
> You can thank my wonderful gf for me finishing this, she wanted me to finish so she knew how it ended and I ended up being proud of it.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed this, and I'll see you next time.
> 
> peace.


End file.
